Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas
Ceremony held for award of contract of coal gasification plant for urea project at Talcher
Contract signing award ceremony for Coal gasification unit for production of Urea and Ammonia at Talcher fertilizer plant was held in New Delhi today. Rs 13,277 crore plant in the Angul district, Odisha, being promoted by GAIL, RCF, CIL and FCIL, will produce 1.27 MMTPA Urea and 0.73 MMTPA Ammonia. The coal gasification technology for the plant will be provided by M/s Wuhan Engineering Co Ltd.
Speaking on the occasion, the Petroleum and Natural gas & Steel Minister Shri Dharmendra Pradhan said that Talcher fertilizer plant will produce Urea and Ammonia based on coal gasification technology that will create a new benchmark in India's development journey. He said "India is fully committed to COP21 to bring down its carbon footprint, and use of coal gasification technology is a step in this direction". Adding on, he said that the Government has decided to revive all closed fertilizer plants in eastern India. Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga for eastern gas grid is progressing at good speed, with Gorakhpur and Barauni being already covered, and Sindari to be covered soon. He said that the project shall use a blend of coal and petcoke as feedstock for production of Fertilizer. Coal for this project shall be sourced from captive Northern part of North Arkhapal mine in Talcher region allotted to TFL and work for development of captive mine is already under progress. Petcoke shall be sourced from Paradip refinery for the project. This project shall promote use of abundantly available domestic coal in an environment friendly manner. Shri Pradhan said that success of this technology shall also propel usage of coal for production of other products like, syngas, diesel, methanol, petrochemicals etc. The Minister said that this project has the potential to be a game changer in Indian context due to the harnessing of Coal through cleaner technologies in sectors other than power and shall produce 2.38 MMSCMD of Natural Gas equivalent Syngas leading to direct reduction in LNG import bill.
In his address, the Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers Shri D.V. Sadananda Gowda said that for meeting the food requirements of the country, the role of fertilizers especially Urea in Indian context is paramount. Currently, India imports about 50 to 70 lakh tones of Urea every year to meet the urea requirement He said that Govt of India is putting its earnest efforts to augment the availability of domestically produced urea. Currently production of urea in the country is done by using pooled natural gas which comprises of domestic NG and imported LNG. Import of LNG is a costly affair and leads to spending valuable foreign exchange. Hence it is preferred that an indigenous raw material is used for production of urea and other fertilizers in the country. He said that Talcher Fertilizer Project is a step in this direction wherein indigenous coal in a mix of petcoke shall be used for production of urea. The project shall improve India's self-sufficiency in Urea, promote agriculture growth in Odisha and increase reliability of Urea availability to farmers of Odisha in particular and India in general. Shri Gowda said that this initiative would propel India towards self-reliance in the Urea sector through efforts under "Make in India", in addition to generating direct and indirect employment of about 4,500.